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Mazer Rackham
Mazer Rackham'' ''was an admiral in the International Fleet"Mazer in Prison" and an honorary member of the Mobile Operations Police,''Earth Awakens'' as well as the mentor to Ender Wiggin.''Ender's Game'' He was first introduced in "Ender's Game". History The First Invasion Earth Unaware During around 100 BX, Mazer was a soldier in the NZSAS - the New Zealand Special Air Service. He was screened by Wit O'Toole for the Mobile Operations Police along with four other members of the NZSAS. During the first test, Mazer and the other 4 were to escort Wit safely to a rendezvous point, while under fire from other MOP soldiers. At the beginning of the journey to the location, Mazer gave his weapon to Wit because he knew Wit would be more effective with the weapon. Mazer and the other four all passed the first test.''Earth Unaware'' Mazer was the first of the NZSAS to participate in the second test, where he was tortured by Wit. After an hour, Wit switched off the torture device and informed Mazer that he had failed the test - that he should have attempted to escape the facility. Earth Afire Since Mazer was scouted for the MOPs, he was assigned to test the experimental HERC for the NZSAS to use in combat. His team included Fatani, Patu, and Reinhardt. For most of the tests the team planned the conditions that they would encounter, but in one test the team was sent by Colonel Napatu with 36 hours of no sleep to retrieve a Copperhead tank. Upon retrieving the tank with the HERC, the team discovered that the tank was not a fake and had two live passengers, Burnzel and Captain Shenzu. The training mission was not a test for the tank, but a display of the HERC for the Chinese. After the test, Mazer and his team were ordered to leave within the day to help train the Chinese to use the HERCs.''Earth Afire'' After receiving news of his departure, Mazer went to tell Kim Arnsbrach that he was ordered to leave for China. During his talk with Kim, he broke up with her because he did not want to marry her and be an absent husband and father. Kim left the room, and Mazer left a little while after to prepare to leave for China. Before leaving the room, Kim gave Mazer a version of the med-assist, so he could hear her voice. On the way to China, Mazer and his men flew with several HERCs to deliver the HERCs to the Chinese safely. Mazer also learned during the trip that his men would be trained to use self-propelled drill sledges during their stay in China. When arriving in China, Mazer and his team were greeted by Captain Shenzu, who displayed the drill sledges to the NZSAS team while explaining how the drill sledges worked. Shenzu then allowed Mazer to have the first ride as a passenger in a drill sledge in the NZSAS team. The driver during Mazer's ride was Lieutenant Wong. The Second Invasion When the Second Invasion had begun, Mazer piloted a poorly-armed supply ship in the rear echelons of the human fleet's formation. As he flew through the swarms of Formic ships, he noticed that they centered around a single craft. Going against orders, he fired a missile at it, destroying it and unknowingly killing a Hive Queen. This ended the invasion with a human victory. Mazer in Prison Following the war, Mazer was placed in one of the International Fleet's courier ships and sent into the stars where his only exercise consisted of electrical stimuli to his muscles. He traveled at nearly the speed of light to keep him young enough to command the human fleet in the future. The ship was programmed to return after a preset amount of time and distance. He would have aged only five years, though decades passed on Earth; upon his return to his home planet, he would be expected to command the human invasion fleet, currently heading to the homeworlds of the Formics. Though his victories in the war had become the Fleet's greatest propaganda tool, and his legend had been perpetuated through the vids that everyone saw, Mazer's time in space was lonely. He had made the decision to take this short trip alone. He utilized the ansible for communication with the International Fleet headquarters. Through this method, he communicated with the then-lieutenant Hyrum Graff, informing him on the newly-organized Battle School. Graff had been assigned as the head of recruitment for the school, and was to look for a candidate who had the same traits as Mazer. Graff had located Mazer's family on Earth and used them to convince Mazer to help him. Mazer was angered that his family, to whom he was considered dead, was used in such a fashion. He was sent bandwidth-costly visual messages via the ansible of his daughter and the rest of his family. Along with the visual, he received letters from his family. However, through the letters he learned that his ex-wife, Kim Arnsbrach, had remarried. The Computer Voice that provided his only companionship in this stage of his journey reported back to the Fleet of Mazer's emotional responses to the letters from his family. It also reported that he had reprogrammed the ship and computer to allow him complete navigational control. The Fleet had grown concerned over these reports and sent shrinks to evaluate him via ansible. Mazer had decided that he would not be coming back to Earth. Mazer instructed the Fleet to give Hyrum Graff sufficient authority to truly find and train a successor to him as commander of the human forces against the Formics. Then, and only then, would Mazer return to Earth, promising to help train his successor a few years earlier than the original plan. The Fleet had no option but to agree, and promoted Graff. Mazer fulfilled his part of the bargain, returning to Earth to train the new commander. The Third Invasion Mazer met his protégé at Command School on Eros. The boy, Ender Wiggin, had been sent to this highest of military schools at a very young age, and Mazer was assigned to teach him to defeat the Formics. Movie.]] In 0 BX, one year after Ender's arrival at Eros, Mazer entered Ender's room and waited for him to wake up; when he did, Mazer sat silently until Ender moved near him, grabbing his leg and knocking him down. This made Ender more cautious of Mazer, but the old man did not speak until the end of the day, when Mazer lashed out in fluid movement and immobilized Ender within two seconds. Mazer informed Ender that he would be his teacher and mentor from then on, and that he would be programming the simulator that Ender would train with. Mazer pushed Ender past his limits, but Ender rose above the pressure. In his "final exam" at Command School, Ender fired the Molecular Disruption Device at the Formic Homeworld, unknowingly committing xenocide but securing a victory for humanity. Mazer revealed to Ender that the exams and simulations had all been real battles, devastating Ender and making him pass out for five days. After the Xenocide After the Third Invasion was won and the League War resolved, a court-martial was held for Hyrum Graff, in which Mazer testified for the Battle School officer. Mazer and Ender had several conversations about the Formics, Graff, and Ender's role in the deaths of Bonito de Madrid and the boy named Stilson. Mazer would never directly confirm any of Ender's theories, but his lack of denial was always enough for Ender to know he was right.[[Ender in Exile|''Ender in Exile]] Mazer was chosen to be the pilot of the first colony ship in the new Dispersal Project, colonizing the former Formic worlds. Ender was also placed in this project as the new governor of a planet later named Shakespeare. It was all a lie, however. Mazer never left the Sol System again. He continued to work with Hyrum Graff in the Ministry of Colonization. Though he was not seen for years during the wars on Earth after Ender's victory, Mazer resurfaced to offer Han Tzu and Julian "Bean" Delphiki II passage into space. Han Tzu refused, while Bean agreed.''Shadow of the Giant'' He accompanied Bean's wife, Petra Arkanian, to Portugal where she retrieved a girl named Bella, who had been born by a surrogate mother carrying an embryo that belonged to Bean and Petra. As Peter Wiggin rebuilt the Hegemony into the Free People of Earth, Graff and Mazer offered Ender's colleagues the opportunity to leave Earth and govern a planet. It was their fear that the Battle School graduates would be used in the worldwide conflict, manipulated by whatever political power rose to prominence, and he wanted to prevent that. Every member who received the offer said no, as they were already too involved in matters on Earth to leave. As Mazer and Peter spoke together, they agreed the time was right for the International Fleet to give Bean a personal starship, the ''Herodotus''.''Shadows in Flight'' They'd promised to take him and his genetically altered children into space to await a cure for their mutation. Mazer had located all but one of Bean's children, and under the direction of Peter, delivered them to Bean and Petra. Mazer also facilitated the divorce between Bean and Petra. He knew much of Petra's heartache at saying good-bye to her husband and children, as he'd experienced a similar period of sadness when he left Earth after stopping the Formics nearly a century earlier. Petra doubted his compassion, but Mazer reiterated his love for her, Bean, and all the other Battle School graduates. Many years later, once the Free People of Earth embodied every government in the world save for the United States, Mazer died. Legacy Mazer's life and death were immortalized in a series of books on the history of the Formic Wars, written by Valentine Wiggin. In these books, Mazer was credited as the military hero he was, but his love for his family and the Battle Schoolers was also an important point. Humanity thought of Mazer as a hero long before Ender defeated the Formics, and they remembered him as such long after world peace was established. Trivia * Mazer's exile to the stars mirrors Bean's similar journey, as they both divorced their wives and set out on a linear path with no end point. * Mazer was one of the few characters introduced in the Ender's Game short story that carried over into the novelized version."Ender's Game" * He is portrayed by Ben Kingsley in the Ender's Game Film.''Ender's Game'' (Film) Quotes References Site Navigation Category:EnderVerse Category:Characters Category:Characters introduced in Ender's Game